The Death at Troe

Arsenius died at Troe near Memphis around the middle of the fifth century, very old, having returned there after his wanderings — and he died as he had lived, in tears and the fear of God. This file gathers the sources for his passing: his last instructions to his disciples, the famous scene of his fear at the approach of death, and the chronology and commemoration of his end, with the round numbers and the wonders held at the level the evidence allows.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Desert Father; father of stillness)

The Last Years and the Return to Troe

After the wanderings forced on him by the destruction of Scetis (see The Flight from the Barbarians), Arsenius came at last, the tradition holds, back to Troe near Memphis, and there he ended his days. He was by now extremely old — the sources reckon a life of some ninety years and more, spanning from about 354 to about 450 — and the Apophthegmata preserve a handful of sayings from these final years that show the old hermit still keeping his stillness, still weeping, and still teaching the few who came to him (Chitty 1966, 145; Ward 1984; the synaxarion).

[Disputed: the year of Arsenius' death is conventionally given as c. 449–450 and his age as about ninety-five years, but these are reconstructions and round figures rather than documented dates; the "ninety-five years" is a conventional figure for an exceptionally long life, and the sources permit only the secure conclusion that he died very old around the middle of the fifth century (Chitty, *The Desert a City*, 1966, 145; and the synaxarion notices, which preserve the round numbers).]

The Fear at the Approach of Death

The most famous and most characteristic of the death-bed sayings is the scene of Arsenius’ fear. The Apophthegmata report that as he lay dying his disciples saw him weep, and were amazed, and asked, “Father, are you also afraid?” — and the old man answered, “Indeed, the fear which is mine at this hour has been with me ever since I became a monk” (Apophthegmata Patrum, Arsenius 40; trans. Ward 1984). The saying is one of the most quoted in the whole desert corpus, and it crowns the portrait of Arsenius the weeper: the man whose tears had channelled his chest (see Tears and Vigil) wept also at the end, not from despair but from the reverent dread that had governed his whole life.

The desert read this fear not as a failure of faith but as its perfection. Arsenius’ fear was the fear of God — the awe of the soul before the holiness of God and the weight of judgment — and that he kept it to the last, after a lifetime of stillness and tears, was held up as the mark of a true monk, who never presumes on his own salvation. The saying became a standard text on the fear of God and on the danger of spiritual complacency: if Arsenius the great hermit feared at his death, how much more should the careless tremble (Ward 1984; Harmless 2004, 425–427; on the desert fear of God, Hausherr, Penthos, 1982). The fear is the inner counterpart of the tears, and both are the fruit of the same clear sight of God.

The Last Instructions

The tradition preserves Arsenius’ final instructions to his disciples, and they are of a piece with his life. He charged them, the Apophthegmata report, not to make a fuss over his body or to keep his remains as relics in any grand way, and there is a saying in which he gives directions about his burial that breathe the same humility as the rest of his teaching: that they should bind a rope to his feet and drag him to the mountain rather than honor his corpse, or words to that effect, expressing his horror of being venerated (cf. Apophthegmata Patrum, Arsenius 40; Ward 1984). [Disputed: the dramatic form of Arsenius' instruction about his body — that his disciples should drag his corpse to the mountain rather than honor it — is preserved in the saying tradition but is also a recurring *topos* of desert humility attached to more than one father; it is reported here as the tradition's testimony to his self-abasement rather than as a verbatim deathbed transcript (Ward, *Sayings*, 1984; on the convention, Harmless, *Desert Christians*, 2004).] Whatever its exact form, the instruction expresses the consistent character of the man: the great Roman who had refused honor in life refused it also in death.

The Apophthegmata also preserve a tender note: that as Arsenius was dying his disciples were troubled, and he comforted them, and that the hour of his passing was peaceful despite his tears — the fear and the peace held together, as they had been all his life (Ward 1984). The death-bed scenes are the last of the sayings, and they close the collection as a life is closed.

The Witness of His Disciple

Much of what we know of Arsenius’ last years and death comes through his disciple Daniel, who is named in the Apophthegmata as the source of several of the Arsenius sayings, and who preserved and transmitted his teacher’s memory (Apophthegmata Patrum, Arsenius, the Daniel material; Ward 1984; Chitty 1966, 145). The figure of Daniel is itself a witness to the way the tradition was carried: from the dying hermit to the disciple who remembered him, and from the disciple into the written collections a generation or more later (see The Apophthegmata and the Tradition). The chain by which Arsenius reaches us runs through such men, and Daniel is the first link.

The Fear of God and the Hope of the Christian

The scene of Arsenius’ fear at death raises a question that the tradition itself reflected on: how is such fear consistent with Christian hope? The answer the desert gave is important for understanding the saint. The fear of God in the fathers’ vocabulary is not the terror of the damned but the reverent awe of the creature before the holiness of the Creator and the seriousness of the judgment — a fear that coexists with love and hope, indeed deepens them, because it takes God and salvation with full seriousness (Hausherr, Penthos, 1982; Ward 1984). Arsenius’ fear was of this kind: not despair of God’s mercy but refusal of presumption upon it, the watchfulness of a soul that would not grow careless even at the end of a long and holy life.

The tradition held this fear to be a sign of spiritual health, not of its lack. The careless and the proud do not fear, because they do not see; the saints fear, because they see clearly — both the holiness of God and their own continuing need of His mercy. That Arsenius, after sixty years of the monastic life, still feared was therefore taken as evidence of how clearly he saw, and how little he presumed. The desert preserved the scene as a corrective to spiritual complacency: if so great a father feared at his death, the saying implies, then no one may safely grow careless, and the fear of God is to be kept to the last breath (Ward 1984; Harmless 2004, 425–427). The fear and the hope are not opposites in this understanding but partners; the soul that fears rightly is the soul that hopes rightly, because both rest on taking God in earnest.

The Meaning of the End

Arsenius’ death completes the pattern of his life and gives it its final form. He died as he had lived — weeping, fearing God, refusing honor, keeping silence — and the tradition received his death as the seal of his stillness. The man who had heard “flee from men and you will be saved” in the palace of Theodosius died an old and friendless exile in a rocky place near Memphis, his desert in ruins, his tears still flowing, his fear of God undiminished after sixty years of the monastic life. The desert held this end to be a great death, the death of a true monk, and made it the close of his sayings and the ground of his commemoration (see Feast and Cult; on his place in the tradition, Legacy and Assessment).

His commemoration on 8 May, his veneration across East and West, and the assessment of his place in the tradition are the subjects of the final sections (see Feast and Cult; Arsenius in the Monastic Memory).

References

Ward, Benedicta, trans. The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection. Rev. ed. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984. (Arsenius 40, the fear at death and the last instructions; the Daniel material; the death-bed scenes.)
Chitty, Derwas J. The Desert a City. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966. (145, on Arsenius’ last years, his disciple Daniel, and his death.)
Harmless, William. Desert Christians. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. (425–427, on the death-bed sayings and the desert fear of God.)
Hausherr, Irénée. Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East. Trans. Anselm Hufstader. Cistercian Studies 53. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1982. (On the fear of God and compunction.)